Tennessee Brewery
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

The Tennessee Brewery building stands at the intersection of Butler and Tennessee streets in
Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...
,
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
. It is directly on the bluff overlooking the Mississippi River. The building once housed the Tennessee Brewing Company, a leader in early brewery production.


History

The
brewery A brewery or brewing company is a business that makes and sells beer. The place at which beer is commercially made is either called a brewery or a beerhouse, where distinct sets of brewing equipment are called plant. The commercial brewing of be ...
was originally organized in 1877 by G.H. Herbers as "The Memphis Brewing Company". In 1885, it was bought by J. W. Schorr, Casper Koehler, and associates, and soon became one of the largest breweries of the era. The first beer marketed from the brewery was a
Pilsener Pilsner (also pilsener or simply pils) is a type of pale lager. It takes its name from the Bohemian city of Plzeň (german: Pilsen), where the world's first pale lager (now known as Pilsner Urquell) was produced in 1842 by Pilsner Urquell Brewe ...
. Like many other brands of the time, the beers were not usually named. Instead, the type or style of the beer was used as the name, along with the name of the brewery. They also produced several other beer styles. An ad from 1890 lists their styles as Pilsener, Export, Budweiser, Tennessee Pale, and Bavarian. Later, two new brands called Columbian Extra Pale and Erlanger were also produced, before
prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
shut down operations. At one point, more than 1500 workers worked at the brewery. By 1903, production was up to 250,000 barrels per year making it the largest brewery in the
south South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
. Prohibition shut down operations, however after prohibition ended, the plant was reopened by J. W.'s son, John Schorr. Very rapidly, they got back up to production speed, and the best known and leading beer sold in Memphis for many years was "
Goldcrest The goldcrest (''Regulus regulus'') is a very small passerine bird in the kinglet family. Its colourful golden crest feathers, as well as being called the "king of the birds" in European folklore, gives rise to its English and scientific na ...
". After 1938 the beer was named "Goldcrest 51", to honor more than 51 years in the brewing business. Goldcrest 51 was a bottled beer until 1947, when they started using cans. As a somewhat local beer, the brewery actually used returned bottles up until they ceased all operations, in 1954. The building that remains today was erected in 1890 and is basically unchanged from that time (other than renovations performed to keep the building intact for possible further development in the future). The bottling plant was an add-on to the building much later, in 1938. Plans have been made in the past to turn the building into condominiums or shopping space, however none of these have occurred. File:Goldcrest Tennessee Brewery.jpg, Goldcrest File:Goldcrest51.gif, Goldcrest 51 File:Pilsener.jpg, Pilsener File:Pearlofmemphis.jpg, Pearl of Memphis


Current status

The Tennessee Brewery was previously owned by The Tennessee Brewery LLC. The property was appraised in 2005 at $248600. Brewery Tennessee LLC transferred the property for $350000 to The Tennessee Brewery LLC in 1999. It was transferred to Brewery Tennessee LLC in 1995 from Marvin Ratner. After the Tennessee Brewery "Untapped" event held there during the spring of 2014, the revived interest in the brewery led it to be purchased for $825000 by Billy Orgel, a cell phone tower developer based in Memphis. The event was held again, as a "Revival" in the spring of 2015, before development work began on the building that fall. The current owner of record is "495 Tennessee LLC". Modification work has been done to turn the building into apartments, and units are available for reservations on an as available basis.


See also

*
List of defunct breweries in the United States At the end of 2017, there were total 7,450 breweries in the United States, including 7,346 craft breweries subdivided into 2,594 brewpubs, 4,522 microbreweries, 230 regional craft breweries and 104 large/non-craft breweries. The following is a pa ...


References


External links


Art of Abandonment photo shoot of the brewery in 2012

At The Brewery apartments
{{Registered Historic Places Buildings and structures in Memphis, Tennessee Industrial buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Memphis, Tennessee Apartment buildings in Tennessee Romanesque Revival architecture in Tennessee Commercial buildings completed in 1890 Brewery buildings in the United States